2013-02-12 10:40:24 - Business Continuity Forum sees industry experts across the board discuss crisis, social media and business continuity management.

February 12, 2013: Le Royal Meridien, Abu Dhabi

The potential of averting a 'crisis' with a structured incident management plan. The 3rd Annual Business Continuty and Emergency Response Forum opened to a great start yesterda with the keynote presentation by Dr. Jamal Hosani of National Emergency Crisis and Disaster Management Authority (NCEMA). Dr. Hosani, Director of Information and Communication Technology, presented the idea of an amalgamation of business continuity with disaster management. He also introduced an overview of the new business continuity standard for UAE; AE/HSC/NCEMA 7000:2011. Discussing crisis management further, Paul Morris, Head of Crisis and Emergency Response from Al Hosn Gas discussed the interrelationship between incident, crisis and business continuity management. He also discussed the potential of averting a

'crisis' with an incident management plan.

Tony Schmitz, chairman at the forum for day one and President and CEO of Send Word Now spoke on the challenges of crisis management and and discussed the 7 deadly sins of crisis communication. He also presented a case-study on hurricane Katrina and Sandy and the tools to be used to communicate crisis internally and externally. Taking on the same theme, Mel Scott of Saudi Aramco spoke on the concept of establishing an effective media portal to efficiently protect the business image at the time of a crisis. He also gave an overview of the recent Shamoon Attack in his presentation. The pre-lunch sessions also saw Mahmoud Chamma of Kuwait Oil Company and Omer Syed from the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) address the delegation. Chamma, an HSE Consultant addressed the contractual aspect and its management between industry and government while Syed presented the from the view of the transport sector and spoke of establishing a crisis management cell.

Post lunch, the participants and attendees took part in two key panel discussions. Joining Syed on the first panel were Ahmad Hassan from DU Telecom and Sohail Khimani of KASB Bank. The panel discussed on Business Continuity Management practices as part of the National Crisis and Emergency Management. The second panel was of a technical nature that saw Charles Boffin, Chief Executive from Clearview Continuity and Greg Moser of Khalifa University discuss the challenges of the Business Continuity standard ISO-22301 and its transition from BS 25999. The forum also saw the topic on failure of IT services and its impact on Business Continuity Management by Vishwanath Nair of the Emirates Group. Ending day one was the address by Rania Wreikat from the Government of Dubai. Encompassing the major theme for day one, she spoke on the role of social media in the current climate and compared it with traditional forms of crisis management.

Day two of the forum will see discussions along hte lines of Business Continuity Management and Tactical Solutions. The opening will see the keynote presentation from Abdulrahman Al Naser of Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) on the telecom business and the the rapid deployment solution. The forum is also set to see Bryan Mcatee of BCM Solutions and Sohail Khimani of KASB bank address business continuity and its aspects whill Dr. Lenzmann of Emirates NBD and Liaqat Satti of RasGas are schedule to address different correlation and integration between crisis management and business continuity. The forum will also see a special address from Hussam Al Khaldi President of the ASSE UAE Chapter. Covering the tactical aspect will see Ramla Saleem of HSBC and Azeem Memon of Dubai Islamic Bank speaking from a strategic aspect. Panel discussions today will look into if best practices are being put into play and discussion on theory vs practicality of a business continuity plan.

Send Word Now, leading worldwide provider of emergency notification and on-demand alerting and response services, is the Platinum Sponsor whilst GBM is the technology sponsor for the event. The 3rd Annual Business Continuity and Emergency Response Forum is also sponsored by BCM Solutions, Cassidian Cybersecurity and Cobalt. Endorsed by the BCI, the forum is also supported by the IIRSM.

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